My Part in the Collapse of Civilization by Michael Spring

It landed on my desk with a zoink, a purposeful little email, explaining why, (because the numbers were tight) my homely little cubicle was about to be re-purposed. My severance package, the mail said, would be discussed with me, at the appropriate time.

All right, I panicked. There was no reason for me to apply bulldog clips to the cabling and short out the computer room, let alone to hold my lighted cigarette under the sprinklers – in a 'no smoking' zone too.

The results were immediate and obvious. Hard drives succumbed to wounds, the network ran up the white flag and shut down. PCs refrained from dealing with email and silently blacked out. The fine rain made things messy. Contracts dissolved. Ink slid from maintenance agreements and share options. Smoke rose from hissing sockets.

The splatters of tomato sauce I squirted from their squeezable containers, randomly, over the Herman Miller, into the walkways, made it look worse. Gradually, my co-workers began to notice.

The lifts ground to a halt between floors, the muffled shouting eerily reminiscent of disaster movies, and then the air-conditioning died with a sickly convulsion.

By the time the marketing VP strode into the meeting room for his regular Friday status briefing, the telephone system was telling incoming callers to 'leave a… leave a… leave a…' and I was taping over the security cameras.

A SWAT team from accounts overpowered him. When I left, one of the product managers was making him eat the marketing plan for the year, which wasn't, I'll admit, pretty.

We found uniforms for whoever would join us. We thought the 'One Team, One Revolution' stuff from the sales conference would be appropriate, and we broke out shirts, jackets, and bags which people filled with chocolate and Cokes from the shattered autovends, preparing to hunker down.

Weapons came from the canteen, sandbags from the maintenance crew. Let's be clear though, I didn't ask anyone to start breaking the gigantic panes of glass in the atrium - the white leather sofas in reception were suddenly harpooned like whales - or to burn furniture, or to broadcast the manifesto drawn up by the revolutionary committee, wherever that came from.

Nor did I want hostages to be taken from amongst those of our customers who were attending the sales briefing, even though they were a particularly smug bunch. They're okay. In amongst the wreckage of their finger food lunch, they were quickly manacled and gagged, and strung up with network cable by their ankles.

They're there now, silently swaying from the walkways, obscenely like a line of carcasses in a butcher's truck, but alive.

I had no dealings whatever with the gang of hooligans from customer support who thought it would be amusing to hurl Molotov cocktails at the cars in the car park. It was only when they started to explode, roars of yellow flame accompanied by whoops and yells, that my attention was drawn to the area.

By this time, a rancorous battalion from secretarial support, looking like Amazons, lipstick blobs on their Kamikaze headscarves, had hacked down the flag poles outside reception and blocked the entrance way quite effectively with bonfires of training manuals and packaging. They were pinning down fire-fighters with telephone handsets and keyboards fired from improvised ballistas.

I had nothing whatever to do with the snatch squad who chained selected managers out on the sun deck in their underwear, coated with jam and chili dressing, coleslaw, mayonnnaise - to attract insects, they said, having ripped the Armani suits from their backs and stuffed odd remnants from the company flag in their mouths.

By now, the fountain out front was dyed red, and some of the African-American canteen workers were demanding an apology for slavery, and a repatriation option. Demands from elsewhere included a commitment to non-GM foods, workers to run key committees, R and D, accounts, in addition to the pay rise, renewed contracts, and longer holidays. The ad hoc revolutionary committee was discussing a full amnesty with the HR director, who was tied to his chair, whimpering, while they threatened to do something with matchsticks under his fingernails.

What? No, I don't know why chainsaws are being craned up to the CEO's office. Yes, of course it was unfortunate for the chairman of the company to be lassoed and strung naked in a parachute harness from the balcony of his tenth floor office. Of course he should have been hard at work golfing, lobbying for more government contracts, but that was none of my doing. I do not know who posted the pictures to the internet or threw patisserie at his helpless form. Of course that would be distressing for his family.

Look. Don't attempt to storm the building. Some of the guys in tech support are well connected. They're arranging for flame-throwers to be dropped from helicopters, and they seem to know how to make cruise missiles out of beer kegs. Each one is aimed at the Capitol.

--

My Part in the Collapse of Civilisation by Michael Spring was read by Camila Fiori at the Liars' League Past & Future event on Tuesday 12 June, 2007

Michael Spring writes occasional fiction under his own name and on sport as Jeff Blakeney. He loves horse racing, books and his family, but perhaps not in that order. Brittle Star, Fieldstone Review, Volume and Radio Ulster are among those who have published and broadcast him. He lives in London.

It landed on my desk with a zoink, a purposeful little email, explaining why, (because the numbers were tight) my homely little cubicle was about to be re-purposed. My severance package, the mail said, would be discussed with me, at the appropriate time.

All right, I panicked. There was no reason for me to apply bulldog clips to the cabling and short out the computer room, let alone to hold my lighted cigarette under the sprinklers – in a 'no smoking' zone too.

The results were immediate and obvious. Hard drives succumbed to wounds, the network ran up the white flag and shut down. PCs refrained from dealing with email and silently blacked out. The fine rain made things messy. Contracts dissolved. Ink slid from maintenance agreements and share options. Smoke rose from hissing sockets.

The splatters of tomato sauce I squirted from their squeezable containers, randomly, over the Herman Miller, into the walkways, made it look worse. Gradually, my co-workers began to notice.

The lifts ground to a halt between floors, the muffled shouting eerily reminiscent of disaster movies, and then the air-conditioning died with a sickly convulsion.

By the time the marketing VP strode into the meeting room for his regular Friday status briefing, the telephone system was telling incoming callers to 'leave a… leave a… leave a…' and I was taping over the security cameras.

A SWAT team from accounts overpowered him. When I left, one of the product managers was making him eat the marketing plan for the year, which wasn't, I'll admit, pretty.

We found uniforms for whoever would join us. We thought the 'One Team, One Revolution' stuff from the sales conference would be appropriate, and we broke out shirts, jackets, and bags which people filled with chocolate and Cokes from the shattered autovends, preparing to hunker down.

Weapons came from the canteen, sandbags from the maintenance crew. Let's be clear though, I didn't ask anyone to start breaking the gigantic panes of glass in the atrium - the white leather sofas in reception were suddenly harpooned like whales - or to burn furniture, or to broadcast the manifesto drawn up by the revolutionary committee, wherever that came from.

Nor did I want hostages to be taken from amongst those of our customers who were attending the sales briefing, even though they were a particularly smug bunch. They're okay. In amongst the wreckage of their finger food lunch, they were quickly manacled and gagged, and strung up with network cable by their ankles.

They're there now, silently swaying from the walkways, obscenely like a line of carcasses in a butcher's truck, but alive.

I had no dealings whatever with the gang of hooligans from customer support who thought it would be amusing to hurl Molotov cocktails at the cars in the car park. It was only when they started to explode, roars of yellow flame accompanied by whoops and yells, that my attention was drawn to the area.

By this time, a rancorous battalion from secretarial support, looking like Amazons, lipstick blobs on their Kamikaze headscarves, had hacked down the flag poles outside reception and blocked the entrance way quite effectively with bonfires of training manuals and packaging. They were pinning down fire-fighters with telephone handsets and keyboards fired from improvised ballistas.

I had nothing whatever to do with the snatch squad who chained selected managers out on the sun deck in their underwear, coated with jam and chili dressing, coleslaw, mayonnnaise - to attract insects, they said, having ripped the Armani suits from their backs and stuffed odd remnants from the company flag in their mouths.

By now, the fountain out front was dyed red, and some of the African-American canteen workers were demanding an apology for slavery, and a repatriation option. Demands from elsewhere included a commitment to non-GM foods, workers to run key committees, R and D, accounts, in addition to the pay rise, renewed contracts, and longer holidays. The ad hoc revolutionary committee was discussing a full amnesty with the HR director, who was tied to his chair, whimpering, while they threatened to do something with matchsticks under his fingernails.

What? No, I don't know why chainsaws are being craned up to the CEO's office. Yes, of course it was unfortunate for the chairman of the company to be lassoed and strung naked in a parachute harness from the balcony of his tenth floor office. Of course he should have been hard at work golfing, lobbying for more government contracts, but that was none of my doing. I do not know who posted the pictures to the internet or threw patisserie at his helpless form. Of course that would be distressing for his family.

Look. Don't attempt to storm the building. Some of the guys in tech support are well connected. They're arranging for flame-throwers to be dropped from helicopters, and they seem to know how to make cruise missiles out of beer kegs. Each one is aimed at the Capitol.

News

Thanks to our faithful fans' nominations we were shortlisted (along with four other eminent & excellent events) in the Best Regular Spoken Word Night category at the Saboteur Awards 2016! We didn't win (though congrats to Manchester's Bad Language, who did) but we certainly enjoyed the awards party cocktails ...

INTERVIEW ON THE STATE OF THE ARTS

In celebration of our one hundredth event, the fine folks over at thestateofthearts.co.uk interviewed us about the secret of Liars' League's longevity, here.

BEST REGULAR SPOKEN WORD NIGHT AT SABOTEUR AWARDS

We got nominated, we canvassed, we voted, we hoped, we prayed. Then we went down to Oxford - along with our publishing partners Arachne Press - for the Saboteur Awards and came away with a gong each! We won Best Regular Spoken Word Night 2014 and Weird Lies won Best Anthology.

LL IN GUARDIAN TOP TEN

Liars' League is one of The Guardian's 10 Great Storytelling Nights, according to the paper's go-out-and-have-fun Do Something supplement, that is. And they should know. The article is here and mentions several other live lit events well worth checking out.

ARTICLE ABOUT US IN WORDSWITHJAM

Journalist Catriona Troth came along to our Twist & Turn night, reviewed it and interviewed Katy, Liam, Cliff and author/actor Carrie. See what she said in her article for WordsWithJam here.

BUY OUR AUTHORS' BOOKS!

Longtime contributors Niall Boyce, Jonathan Pinnock & Richard Smyth all have books out which you'd be well advised to buy, then read, then buy for others. All genres are catered for, from novels (Niall's Veronica Britton) and short stories (Jonathan's Dot Dash) to nonfiction (Richard's Bumfodder)

KATY LIAR'S DEBUT NOVEL

Liar Katy Darby's debut novel, a Victorian drama called The Unpierced Heart (previously titled The Whores' Asylum) is now out in Penguin paperback. It's had nice reviews in The Independent on Sunday, Sunday Times & Metro (4*).

OUR INTERVIEW WITH ANNEXE MAG!

They came, they saw, they asked us a bunch of interesting questions. Interview by Nick of Annexe Magazine with Katy of LL: here